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Apr 5, 2011
This week's theme
Words borrowed from French

This week's words
soubrette
beau geste
volte-face
entrepot
gris-gris

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A.Word.A.Day
with Anu Garg

beau geste

PRONUNCIATION:
(bo ZHEST)
plural beaux gestes (bo ZHEST)

MEANING:
noun: A gracious, but often meaningless, gesture.

ETYMOLOGY:
From French, literally fine gesture. Earliest documented use: 1920.

USAGE:
"An effective encore doesn't risk becoming an empty beau geste; it is an emotional p.s. somehow relating to the mood of the written program."
Peter Dobrin; Applauding the Orchestra for Offering Encores; The Philadelphia Inquirer (Pennsylvania); Jan 15, 2011.

See more usage examples of beau geste in Vocabulary.com's dictionary.

A THOUGHT FOR TODAY:
You only have power over people as long as you don't take everything away from them. But when you've robbed a man of everything, he's no longer in your power -- he's free again. -Alexander Solzhenitsyn, novelist, Nobel laureate (1918-2008)

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